


System Hack

by Sholio



Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 22:56:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16396667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Ward's dad used his birthday as a password to exploit Rand Industries. There never was a better metaphor for their relationship, really.





	System Hack

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt on Tumblr: _In S1, we found out when Ward's bday is thanks to it being Harold's password to his secret entrance into the Rand Ind. building. I was wondering how Ward would react if he ever found out about it? Say when he was purging Rand Industries of any suspicious possibly Hand affiliated thing. And if he'd tell anyone like Danny, Colleen or Misty about it?_

"Dammit, Dad." It wasn't the first time Ward had said it lately. He reached idly for the glass of water beside the computer, wishing it was something stronger, but at least the shape of the whiskey glass in his fingers was familiar enough to soothe the ache somewhat. Outside the darkened windows of his office, the lights of the city glimmered.

The process of tracking down Harold's back doors, exploits, and little system booby traps in Rand's systems was seemingly endless. And every one of those was a potential Hand exploit, so it had been a priority to get all of those rooted out of the system, at the same time as Rand Industries was shedding itself of its affiliations with any known Hand-associated businesses.

It seemed to him lately that the business of actually _doing_ business was taking a backseat to the drudgery of cleaning up the company, turning it into something that was up to the standards that Danny ...

... well ... no. It was easy to blame this all on Danny. But Danny was off in Asia, doing whatever the hell he and Colleen were doing there, and if Ward had wanted to continue running Rand the way his dad had been, he'd have been free and clear to do it. It wasn't like Danny would even know, if Ward was willing to lie to him about it.

It's just that ... he didn't want to. He wanted the company to be what he'd originally thought it was. He wanted it to be something he was proud to be in charge of.

Also, every morning he walked by that damn portrait of Danny in the office-level foyer, so the idiot was watching him even when he wasn't here.

Ward huffed out a sigh and went back to sorting through electronic security records for the last couple of years, double-checking passcodes against the list of employees who a) currently worked for the company, and b) were not dead. He was vaguely aware that he was hungry. Probably should've ordered takeout. Or had his assistant do it before she went home for the night. Maybe there was an intern still around ...

He should probably delegate the kind of thing he was doing right now, too, but when it came down to people literally being able to get into the building using Hand codes, he figured it was better to do the checks himself. The more of it he did personally, the less he had to worry about.

... huh. _That_ was a familiar set of numbers.

He was tired enough that it took him a minute to even realize why his own birthday looked so familiar. And it might not even have stood out to his fatigued brain anyway, except that it was in the system six different times on different parts of the security network, logged to ... hmm. An employee named Avril Lavigne.

_Fuck you forever, Dad. Also, you're not as funny as you think you are._

_Were. As you were._

He looked at the access logs, and got a sharp twitch through the viscera when he noticed that his dad had used that code only a week or so before his death. It was like a ghostly hand brushing across his spine -- the hand he never managed to get out from under, not quite. His dad was everywhere in the company, an endless list of reasons why Ward couldn't forget him or quit him, even after Harold was dead.

It had, in his darker moments, occurred to him to wonder whether it was more than an overdeveloped sense of responsibility that had led him to throw himself into running the company for these weeks since Harold's death and Danny's flight out of the city. Maybe it was really just a way of punishing himself, an endless self-flagellation. Everywhere he turned, there were reminders of Harold lurking around the company in ways large and small. He'd been under his father's thumb for his entire life, and now that Harold was dead, it still felt like Harold was running Ward's life, no matter how hard Ward tried to separate himself and become his own CEO in his own mold.

He could run too, just like Danny had. He could leave it all behind. But he wouldn't, damn it. He was going to make this company be what it _should_ have been, before Dad killed his best friend and took Rand Industries down a path that brought it, eventually, to being a conduit for heroin smuggling and little more than a shell corporation for the fundraising interests of some kind of ancient zombie death cult.

Well, it wasn't going to be that on his watch. He deleted the codes with a few keystrokes, and he didn't wonder what had been going through his dad's head when those codes were set. At least, not much.

He really did miss drinking.

 

***

 

"Did I ever tell you my dad used my birthday as a back door into the company?"

"Hmm?" Danny said. He was sprawled across a couple of seats on the Rand plane. They were over the Pacific somewhere, headed to Hong Kong. "Uh, no. I don't think so."

"Not like it matters now." Ward decided to take a cue from Danny and lie down, flopping across a row of the jet's plush seats. It'd been night when they had boarded the plane in New York; right now it was evening, judging from the purple-tinged light outside the windows, but that was only because they were flying backwards across time zones. His eyes felt gritty and his head ached. What time _was_ it according to his internal clock, six in the morning or so? Not that it made all that much difference. He had learned from past business trips that it was better to ignore his body's internal cues and try to adjust to local time; it made things easier in the long run.

There were some small rustlings from the seat across the aisle, and Ward rolled over enough to look across and see that Danny had propped up his chin in his hand. "It obviously matters since you're bringing it up. What did he use that for?"

"Oh, I don't know. It was in a dozen places around the company." Ward rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. He wished, now, that he hadn't mentioned it. Danny was too empathic and goddamn perceptive and they still had like six or eight hours stuck on a plane together until they got to Hong Kong. _Why the hell had he even mentioned it._ "They're all gone now," he added, eyes still shut, hoping Danny would just leave it the fuck alone. "Potential Hand exploits. I got rid of 'em."

There was a short silence from across the aisle before Danny said, "Your dad was a grade-A dick."

"Yeah, well," Ward said to the red-tinted dark behind his eyes, "I shot him, so."

He almost jumped out of his skin at the light brush of someone else's hand over his wrist. He jerked his hand away and opened his eyes and tilted his head back to find Danny looking at him across the aisle, also upside-down, reaching across to, Ward wasn't sure, grab his hand or something.

"You're not your dad," Danny said, his fingers loosely closing on empty air. "You're a much better person."

Ward had to grin at that, his head twisted around and tilted back, looking upside-down across the space between them. "Yeah, the bar is so low that it's subterranean, you know that, right?"

Danny sprung a surprise attack and grabbed Ward's hand anyway, because he was goddamn _fast_ , stupid kung fu kid that he was. He hooked his curled fingers into Ward's, and it would've been possible to pull away, but maybe Ward was just too tired. "Yeah well, he's dead and you're here, and since that's true, I'm gonna find some cool places to take you in Hong Kong."

"I thought the whole reason why we were going to Hong Kong was to look up that shipping manifest, because it just can't be done from New York," Ward said. He let his hand fall back, dragged down by the weight of Danny's arm across the aisle between them. He still hadn't tried to pull loose.

"We aren't just after one thing. We're both looking for something. Maybe it's there."

"Yeah, _whatever,"_ Ward said, and closed his eyes again, but Danny's fingers were still curled warmly against his, and it was at times like this that his asshole dad didn't seem to matter so much; all of that was back in New York, and for a change, he wasn't ... and maybe, just maybe, somewhere out there, he could find the person he wanted to be.


End file.
